Enna heart of Sicily and enchantment of millenary history...

Altesina Mount Reserve

Ph. G.M. Amato

It’s possible to get there going out from Enna towards North-East direction, taking the S.S. 121 and then continuing towards Villadoro. It has an extension of 744 Ha and concerns Leonforte’s and Nicosia’s municipalities. The ancient Roman’s Mons Aereus, centre of the geographic and administrative division of the three valleys (today still considered the right isle division ), gives the name to the whole of Erei’s chain that concerns great part of the inner Sicily and dominates it panoramically. Its high part, since remote ages, was centre of numerous installations of aboriginal populations, of which remain numerous testimonies. After, from the Middle Age, various hermits chose it to settle down . They erected a convent beside Saint Maria of Lartesina church (of which today remains only the ruins). The mount is characterized by a very thick vegetation, that consists essentially of a holm-wood mixed to an oak-wood and with glades and reforestations by pine or eucalyptus. The fauna do not presents anymore great mammals; it consists of foxes, porcupines and varies rodents species. The avifauna, that until some decade ago numbered also the beautiful Eagle of the Bonelli, turns out interesting in special way for the presence of numerous rapacious diurnal and nocturnal.
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Manager Agency: State property Forests Company
Via Piazza Armerina - Enna Tel. 0935 565401